By Erin Pirkle
For years, I thought I was alone in a freakish existence. I guess we—those of us living with mental illness—all start out that way until the day we finally discover we aren’t alone at all. Or freakish. We’re just human.
I began picking my skin when I was six years old. I remember that first manic episode well, because it was the day my mother was hauled away in an ambulance after the first of many overdoses to come in the years ahead.
My childhood was clouded by my mother’s mental illness (close to six diagnoses to date) and her invasive addiction to prescription pain and sleep medications. Then alcohol. Then back to medication.
Fortunately, I was a child who had supportive grandparents who were able to raise me in their home and take care of my mother under their roof. They tried to hide my mother’s addiction, but because I was forced to grow
up too quickly and always be on high alert, that was impossible. I had no choice but to survive in a house that was constantly in a war zone of my mother’s creation. No one could shield me from my parents’ divorce, my father’s abusive nature, or my mother’s addiction.
Growing up in a dysfunctional home of addiction, divorce, and mental illness was a hard burden to bear. Starting in elementary school, I felt the pressure from my grandparents and my own anxious mind to hide my secret home life from the world. I naturally fought to fit in with my peers, prove myself to my teachers, and show everyone I wasn’t anything like my mom.
Education was my escape from the hell I was living. I threw myself into school as early as first grade, never accepting anything below a B on report cards. As a child, completely helpless about my home and family circumstances, I desperately searched for anything I could control. Grades fit that bill. I had complete power over how hard I worked and became one of the top students in school. I coped with my home life—a present reality I couldn’t control—by knowing I could construct my own future.
While school gave me a sense of control and purpose, my Jewish identity kept me grounded and helped me cope. Unfortunately, the local Jewish community hadn’t made the leap to confront mental health concerns during my childhood years (late 1990s to early 2000s). My mother was a blind spot in my congregation; the leaders and congregants either didn’t notice or looked the other way. My synagogue supported my Jewish education by accepting me into religious school on scholarship and raising money to fund my camp retreat trips, so I could feel a sense of belonging and participate with my Jewish peers.
Though I am extremely grateful for the opportunities granted to me by my synagogue and the financial and emotional support from professionals at Jewish Family & Career Services (JF&CS), I had to create a place for myself in my community. I always had a strong sense of self and personal identity, but I often felt like a burden to the Jewish community at large. I wasn’t hearing conversations about mental health, and no one visited my family at home, in the hospitals, or at the rehab centers my mother frequented. I knew I wasn’t alone, but I also knew my quiet, internal struggle with anxiety and my mother’s problems were invisible and had no place in Jewish communal life.
Then one day, when I was fifteen years old, I suddenly experienced an overwhelming sense of comfort and belonging with one simple internet search.
“Why do I pick my skin when I’m anxious?”
Dermatillomania. The word immediately appeared on the screen with a link to someone’s blog. It literally means, “manic picking of the skin.” In a few short minutes, I learned it’s also commonly known as “skin picking disorder,” “compulsive skin picking,” or “excoriation disorder.” People who pick at their skin do so because they have an impaired stress response in the brain. Dermatillomania is also related to trichotillomania (the pulling of one’s own hair) and nail biting.
The facts poured in with each search, with each click of my mouse, for hours and hours. For the first time, I no longer felt like a freak with ugly scarred skin. Instead, I felt empowered with new tools, resources, and language to get the help I didn’t know I needed. I wasn’t alone. Finding out that two out of every fifty people live with what I have was so reassuring. I realized the ugliest thing wasn’t my skin but the heavy weight of the guilt, resentment, and fear that held me down for so many years.
I was seventeen years old before I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and body-focused repetitive behavior, also known as BFRB. I started counseling and self-care practices along with anti-anxiety medication. I still pick my skin and am confronted constantly by friends, family, and co-workers who don’t understand that I can’t just stop. Dermatillomania is always going to be part of me. The work is in fighting the urge to let it take over with its partner anxiety. More importantly, it is also in forgiving myself when I let the urge take over—and in caring for myself once the damage is done. We’re all only human, and I hope my story provides comfort and confidence for others who have their own stories to share.
There’s power in knowing we can heal together.